Virtualization technologies help IT organizations in three ways: cost-cutting, ease of administration, and the overall effect of IT on the environment. Virtualization cuts costs by reducing the amount of capital resources (equipment), power, and cooling to run an IT infrastructure. Because of the tools that are involved in virtualization, it also reduces the burden of IT management significantly. Finally, by reducing the amount of cooling, power, and other emissions from these servers, virtualization can help IT organizations become more 'green'. Microsoft growth is up from 2006, when they held an 8 percent market share to 23 percent. When this report was released, Hyper-V had just started shipping and is expected to make substantial market gain for Microsoft. A poor economy will actually help the growth of virtualization. Virtualization will gain IT dollars at the expense of other technologies for one reason: cost. Technologies that require high upfront expenditures but take time to generate ROI will be put on hold, while technologies like virtualization that promise immediate cost savings will enjoy broader adoption. Currenty, only 7-8 oercent of servers are virtualized (worldwide) with mnay IT executives researching or planning to implement in the next 18-24 months. Virtualization is the third-fastest-growing sector in the IT market, only storage and security are growing faster. Microsoft has increased its market share in virtualization from 6 percent to 23 percent with the introduction of Hyper-V. The authors and contributors to this work are Microsoft employees and have exclusive product knowledge.